Sunday, May 14, 2006

The famous oldest must-visit-for-tourists Chinese temple on the island of Penang. Temple of Kuan Yin the Goddess of Mercy. Above pictures were taken outside (left picture) in front of the temple's entrance and the roof viewed from inside its interval hall (right picture). I am sure a lot have been written and said about this site in other blogs as well as tourism websites (Will link a few of them WHEN I learn how to do it. Aishehmien, still a baby blogger here) So, I'll skip all the temple intro and mention 1 of the food site near it instead.Penangites of old would be aware of another famous institution right next to it - on its leftside, across a narrow road from the many stalls selling joss-sticks and other praying paraphernalia as where I'm trying to show below.

From here, you'll see this corner shop:-

which is said to sell one of the very best of Penang Loh Mee since our parents' childhood days if not longer. For the uninitiated, this type of noodle is not at all like the Loh Mee /Lor Mee sold in Kuala Lumpur. Usually, it's made up of beehun (vermicelli) and yellow noodles served with parts of the pig like meat, skin, intestines with half a black soy sauce boiled egg in a starchy black soy broth, topped with fried lard.

Order from this stall & you'll get a bowl of this:-

Yes, there's even a black soy chicken foot in it. Whitish liquid is the must-have - garlic sauce! Red's the chilli sauce. Both came from these bottles set on every table:-

Oh, please note that the plate of Loh-bak (5-spice meat rolls) seen by its side is another order.

Verdict: Senior loh mee connoiseurs I was with were quite disappointed. They claimed that the 'standard' dropped from last time (no confirmation whether that was to mean last week, month, year or century). Nevertheless, being there brought back plenty of their younger days' memories and so, it was a long lunch indeed.